The Color of Blood: A Hunger Games Tribute
by QueenoftheTaterTots
Summary: Katniss Everdeen was an average citizen in the populous District Eight: Daughter. Student. Seamstress. But in a split second, everything changed. Her secret life was brought out in the open, and she was captured; put into custody by the Panem government. At age eight, she was left with no family and nowhere to go. Now at sixteen, Katniss will see exactly what it takes to survive.
1. Chapter 1, Part 1

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Entry One, **PART ONE**: 05/18

I awake to the feeling of a rope around my neck. Panicked, I open my eyes wide and look down, my hand instinctively wrapped around my strangulator. It is not a rope, though. It's an arm. The skinny dark arm of a seven year old – Rue – which draws my gaze from wrist, to elbow, to shoulder, and finally to her peaceful, sleeping face.

Sighing gratefully, I loosen my grip and employ the help of both hands to unravel my throat from her tight embrace. I place her arms gently back into their natural position. Smoothing her small braids back into place, I can't help but smile. When she is awake, Rue is bouncing off the walls. Fearless. Energetic. Anything but ladylike. Near the exact opposite of me. But when Rue sleeps, I see the side of her that she hides most of the time. I see silence, beauty, and admiration. The dark skin of her face catches the morning sun with radiance. Rue's countenance is smooth and fresh, not yet crinkled by her excited grin. Even the raven-colored cornrows I've woven her hair into, grown fuzzy from play and rough-housing, seem youthful and picturesque. A pang of envy wondered if I looked that pretty when dreaming. Probably not.

I scrunched my own chocolate ringlets that tumbled down to my waist. My appearance was plain. Like the most of us in District Eight, I had trademark brown curly hair. Over the years, our eyes have grown quick, and almond-like in shape. The common iris is brown, but mine are a streaky hazel. When it comes to skin, District Eight citizens – for the most part – are of a light olive shade. Racial differences are obvious. In turn, our stature is small and agile. I fit these stereotypes to a tee.

Shifting carefully to my other side, I see a huddled shape under the blankets. It's my sister, Primrose, I know. My arm gently glides over to where I presume her head is and pulls back the sheets. What's unveiled is first a pile of golden hair, but upon brushing away is the rosy-cheeked face of a cherub. Meet the polar opposite of my entire district's logic. Straight blond hair. Huge blue eyes. Porcelain skin. And to boot, I realize that she is the exact opposite to Rue as well. Prim looks the same when dreaming as when she is awake. Quiet. Mystic. Perfect.

In slow-motion, I see her eyelids flutter open to reveal her two sparkling sapphires. Prim smiles.

"Good morning," I whisper, pushing a strand of spun gold from her cheek.

"Morning," Prim answers. I sit up, cautious not to push Rue off of our small mattress. Like a kitten, Prim crawls on all fours into my lap. She curls into a ball; head resting on my chest.

I whisper again, my arms folding around her, "You ready for school?"

After hesitating a moment, Prim reaches up and cradles my face in her hands. "Can't we just snuggle?" she says. I'm about ready to burst from cuteness overload.

"No, no, no, no, no," I reply, shaking my head. "I'd love to, Kitten, but we have to go to school. Don't you like school?"

I see the wheels in her head turning. "Your friends? Miss Tang? Don't you want to see them?" I add.

Prim takes a moment to pause, a single finger placed on her chin as if considering these names. In an instant, she shoots me with a grin.

"I knew it!" I titter and reach out to tickle her stomach. "C'mon, you've got to get dressed."

Before I can say anything more, Prim leapfrogs over the side of the bed, springs up on two feet, and begins rifling through the battered lingerie chest directly across the bed. The chest is the only thing I'd inherited from my mother. I shudder. The memories of her are haunting:

From the outside, our family seemed normal. We seemed happy. Perfect. Out in public, a smile was always stitched across our "happy" faces. In the privacy of our home, we were anything but. Angry faces, shouted words, and broken furniture spun around the filthy shack where we lived. Alcohol was drunk. Blood spattered. Bruises were made. I didn't know it at first, but my own mother was the prime instigator. She hated my father. Hated him for no other reason that he lived and breathed. That he married her, that he was committed to her. That he fathered her children and provided for the family. She'd come home from the factory every day, seething with anger about something. Anything. She ordered my father around; cawing and spitting and drinking whiskey. One day my father got tired of it. My mother targeted him, he fought back, and so started the "mother" of all fights. Louder, wilder, and deadlier than any I'd experienced before

I vividly remember being in my tiny bedroom. Glass, dirt, and dried blood were crusted on the wooden floor from the previous night. It was pitch black, as it was late in the night, so I'd opened the door to a crack. I dared to peer through it with one tentative eye. What I saw was…too much that I'd rather not remember. Near the end of the fight, though, was the moment of truth. I still recall my father's exact words:

"Do you think the kids like living like this?" he screamed. "Do you think I like living like this?"

My brother, just a few months old at the time, shrieked in his crib. His name was Tae.

"SHUT UP!" my father roared back. My heart stopped. Never…ever…had my father yelled at us before. Especially at Tae. I brought my hands to my face in horror as he went even farther. In a fit of rage, my father kicked over Tae's cradle, which smashed to bits on the floor. The tiny baby cried his last, and then grew silent.

Whatever came next was such a blur, my brain could not process it all. A montage of baby's cries, screams, my mother's shouts, my father looking straight at me as he fled out the door, never to be seen again. The fear and regret he held in his eyes was almost too much to bear. And it said one thing: _I still love you_. I could hear his voice echo in my subconscious. _I still love you._

Another blur of motion, and strangers invaded our shack. Peacekeepers. I could tell because I made their uniforms at the factory. My mother was yelling at them. Arguing. What was going on? I scurried over to my bed and crawled underneath. The floor was even filthier, and dusty. Just moments later, though, a Peacekeeper kicked the door open to my room. All I could see was his shoes. My limbs froze. Out of the wider door opening, I saw my mother. Her frizzy, short brown hair flung about violently as she struggled with one Peacekeeper at each arm. She bellowed, flailed, and gnashed her teeth. The Peacekeeper in my room searched for me. Following his shoes, I could see that he was checking the window. Then the closet. Then behind the door. Finally, he made his way agonizingly slow directly in front of me. Clump…clump…clump…

My mother was going absolutely crazy. She heightened her escape efforts; foaming at the mouth, screeching profanities. A female Peacekeeper reached into her belt. What she held in her hand I couldn't make out, but it seemed no bigger than a pen. The Peacekeeper shoved the device into the fleshy part of my mother's neck. She clicked the end. In an instant, my mother quieted. Her limbs grew slack. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She fell to the floor with a meaty thump. I had no idea if those monsters had killed her or just knocked her out cold. And I never found out.

The Peacekeeper in my room suddenly hoisted up my mattress. My heart stopped. He found me. Like a frightened animal, I tried to dart away to the open door. The man was in no mood to chase, and he caught me in midstride. Digging thick fingers into my scalp, he pulled me up by the hair and made me look into his face. It was long and square, with an expression of cold professionalism plastered on its surface. Black hair. Black eyes. Fair skin. He might've been considered handsome…if it didn't look like he was going to destroy me right then and there. Without a word, he lifted a free hand, sliding it just under the collar of my shirt. His fingers expertly found their way along the tender portion between my shoulder and throat, thumb resting on my clavicle. The man squeezed his hand. All the air expelled from my lungs. I struggled, gripping the Peacekeeper's sturdy forearm. I couldn't inhale, exhale, or do anything. With the man's eyes still trained on me, I choked out a strangled gasp before everything faded to black.

Slowly, slowly, I drifted back into consciousness. My mind was hazy. I didn't know exactly if I was dreaming or if I was waking up. As I lay there, blinking in the darkness, I noticed the ground. It was a smooth, light metal. And judging by bumps and vibrations, it was moving. I didn't know it then, but I was in a truck. I'd never been in a car before that time, as I was only eight. So, naturally, I assumed I was in a windowless box careening down some track at maybe sixty-five miles per hour. It was soothing at first, the occasional bumps and hums. But as time wore on, I grew more conscious and frightened. Where was I? Where was I going? Who was taking me? Where was my father? My mother? Tae?

I pushed myself up on one elbow. My joints were painfully sore, as if I'd lain in the same position for several hours. It was black as pitch inside the metal cube. I could tell my eyes were open and searching, but all that passed before them were vague outlines in the vast darkness. Varied blocks of light streaked from the air slits near the ceiling. But it wasn't enough to see by. My sharp ears picked up a metallic jingle on the opposite side of the cube. It sounded like someone scraping chains across the truck's metal flooring. I saw a shift in movement.

I sat up. I made noise, too. Both my wrists and ankles were cuffed with heavy, rusted chains. The long lengths of the chains were pooled around my legs. I panicked. My heart thumped in my throat as I tried desperately to free myself. Though my hands and feet were slender, the metal was bound tightly, offering no means of escape. It felt as though morphed to my skin.

I gnawed at my handcuffs, hot tears dripping off my face. I wanted to get out of here. I wanted to go home. I felt trapped and afraid and alone. I buried my face in my hands and began full-on crying. I sobbed as loud as I dared. Then I heard another jingle straight across from me. I felt someone's presence nearing my outstretched left leg. It was getting closer. My skin tensed, and I almost thought I felt a touch or a hot puff of breath. I froze. Suddenly, a square of light illuminated a human form. It was male, was not much bigger than I was, had bleachy blond hair, and was squatting two feet away, his arm reaching toward me. His face and most of his clothing were still darkened. He seemed more phantomish than human.

I screamed. I must've surprised him too, as I heard him retreat back into his corner of the cube, chains clanking. Pressing myself against the side of the metal box, I whimpered and tucked my legs up underneath my body. He almost…touched me. I shuddered.

The boy's voice caught me off-guard, "Who's there?" It's high-pitched, urgent tone bounced off the metal walls. "…WHO'S THERE?"

"QUIET!" another voice barked from the front of the truck. I jumped at the loud bang that followed.

It was quiet again for a while. Honking horns, rumbling wheels, and gurgling engines were background noise compared to the ear-splitting silence.

"…Hello?" the tiniest of whispers hissed in the dark. My hair stood on end. I squeezed myself into the metal wall, willing it to absorb me into its protection.

Unwittingly, I released a small croak, "Ah…" I quickly clamped a hand over my mouth. Oh my god. Why am I so stupid?

I could sense the boy pausing. He didn't know quite how to react. I heard his chains again. It sounded like he was just shifting positions, though.

"I know you're there," His voice, again, made me jolt. But he was right. He heard me, he probably saw me… What was I supposed to do? Sit in the corner and pretend to be the wind? My lungs filled with stale air as I tried to gather all the courage I could muster. I spoke.

"Please," I chirped. The hoarseness of my own voice shocked me. I cleared my throat. "…Where are we?"

A monsoon of other questions flooded my mind. I sealed my lips, though, to see if the boy could answer my first. That and I was too traumatized to want to speak more than absolutely necessary.

The boy drew in a quiet breath. He pondered the question for a while. My ears picked up the subtle clinks of his chains as he moved about.

The softly calloused skin of his hand made a squeak as if ran down the metal paneling. "I'm not…entirely…sure…" The boy said at last. He didn't sound defeated, as I had expected. He sounded…curious. Thinking. Hungry for a challenge.

After a moment more, his dark blocky outline spun its head in my direction. "What if we've been abducted by aliens with…three eyes? Oh, and big green tentacles? And…and what if this is their spaceship, and they've come to take us away to their home planet and…"

The towheaded boy went on and on for a good chunk of time about aliens and unseen planets, and somehow ended on the topic of pirates and clam chowder before I was able to take my turn.

"I was thinking that the Peacekeepers had taken us," I said slowly, fitting the pieces together.

"Yeah," the boy replied quietly. "…I guess you're right."

We sat in more silence. This time, though, it wasn't as deafening or scary as the quietness before. By conversing with the boy, he proved to be less of the apparition I'd interpreted him as, and more of a human being. A goofy, talkative little thing, but a human nonetheless.

"They took me from the factory," the boy said suddenly. "I was sleeping in the…oh, what do you call 'em…rafters. Yeah, rafters. You know, between the roof and the ceiling. It's nice and dark up there, no one can find you, but you have to watch out for the rats, or if it rains or something. But yeah, I was sleeping in the rafters and stuff…then those old Peacekeepers just up and took me from my bed when I was sleeping. Told me I stole from Miss Witherbee's trash."

My eyes widened. Stealing in District Eight, like in most other districts, was a serious crime resulting in execution.

"They didn't listen to me when I said I did it because I was hungry…" the boy sniffed. His chains clinked again. I heard him crawl into a ball, crying softly.

For the time being, my mind was taken off my own predicament. This poor child – no more than two years my senior, whose only resting place was in the rafters of a sweatshop, and, what seemed to be, no one looking out for him – was going to die because he survived off someone's garbage.

My heart panged, I used his sporadic sobs to pinpoint where the boy was seated. I crawled on my hands and knees. The chains shackling me to the truck wall were long, but stretched to maximum length before I neared the boy's corner. I tugged at the chains. Unmoving.

"I'm here," I said soothingly into the boy's general direction. His crying stifled. A single chain clinked. "…But I can't come any farther. My chains – "

Metal clanged on metal, and I heard a small body come bounding across the floor on all fours. An instant later, something slammed miles past my outstretched arms and directly into my stomach. With a small "Oof!" I accepted the embrace; encompassing my arms around the blond boy's almost skeletal body, quaking with sobs. The initial awkwardness passed, and I cradled the boy in my arms. This moment…it reminded me of the day Tae was born. The first time I ever held a baby. My brother. And in the days and nights that followed – whenever Tae tried to stand, but fall, or when he'd wake up crying in the dead of night and my mother was too exhausted to comfort him – I experienced that moment again and again. Feeling his weight in my arms. His warmth. His coos and clucks, his chubby hands reaching up to yank one of my springy curls. Tae used to love my hair, finding it somehow amusing, but I always loved his. A small brown patch at the top of his head; wavy and feathery soft. And his eyes, which were hazel like mine.

For a moment, I pretended the boy was Tae. I rocked him back and forth, humming my gently lullaby. Hush, little Tae. It's all just a nightmare. Hush, little Tae…

I combed my fingers through the boy's hair. No. Not Tae. Not light or brown or wavy and feathery soft. Not Tae. I recalled the fight back at the shack. My father's foot. The cradle. A baby's cry. Splintering wood. Silence. That was Tae. The tiny baby that would never cry again. I finally came to grips with reality. Tae was dead. What cruel irony that was. He was my firsthand experience of life and love. Now he was my first with death and loss.

I gripped the boy tightly; bitter tears running down my cheeks. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair.

Another block of light poured from the air slits. The dark cube slowed. It turned left. Then right. Then left. Finally, the engines grumbled to a dull halt.

Instantaneously, the blond boy leapt from me. "We stopped," he said in a hushed whisper. "I wonder – "

Doors slammed. Shoes tramped and clapped along the gravel road, heading from the front of the truck toward us in the back. I longed to stay near my new friend for protection, but decided it would be smarter to scramble back to my side of the cube. This would hopefully avoid suspicion.

No sooner had I gotten back to my own corner than the doors of the cube swung open. Bright white lights blinded me. I squinted and shielded my burning eyes. Slowly, the outlines of the road, stadium lights, and a squat grey building appeared as my sight adjusted. I looked back at the boy in the far corner of the cube. I could see his full face now. His skin was a light cream. His lips were thin. Hawk nose. Slender jaw. Squared-off chin. Dancing brown eyes popped from under mats of scruffy blond hair. What sagged around the boy's thin frame appeared to be an old, patched factory uniform, complete with a yellow-tinged apron. The shirt was green, however, as opposed to my navy one. I recognized it as a Capitol clothing factory worker's uniform. It made sense, as those factories' jobs were plentiful but harsh. Long hours and dangerous, crowded conditions for barely a pocket-full of coins. Only the truly desperate were willing to make that tradeoff. No wonder he was starving.

I saw the boy's eyes, though veiled by his shock of bleachy hair, widen at what lay before the cube's doors. They flitted to me for an instant. He blinked, pointing ahead of me with a bony hand. I turned my head slowly, following his pointing to the two Peacekeepers at the entrance of the cube. One man, one woman. I immediately recognized the man. Black hair. Black eyes. Fair skin. The man who stole me from my home. The woman beside him I knew, also. She held my mother back as the dark-haired man hunted me. Preyed on me; a timid eight year old girl. From the way she looked, from the way she moved, I knew that the woman feared him. He, for the woman, was one of those people who seemed to radiate a dark aura of respect and intimidation. Demanding obedience. Demanding compliance. Just a cold, hard stone where his heart should be. The man had no sense of conscience. No drive, no soul. He could kill you and feel nothing. And that, in my opinion, was the scariest adversary of all…not injury, not death. Man.

Now I see why the woman did what she did. Taking the pen from her belt. Injecting my mother with poison. Committing murder. It was because she knew the man. Knew what he was capable of. She was fully aware that if she didn't do as she was told, didn't take my mother's life, she was going to be the one lying motionless on the floor. Showing weakness was a death sentence. It was survival of the fittest. Morals were quashed. Lines were crossed. If you refused to risk sentiment for survival, you were snuffed out. No questions asked. One breath of rebellion, one moment of hesitation, and you were dead. The higher up you went, the more pressure there was. Constant, total examination, like an insect under the microscope. The word privacy meant nothing. Hierarchy meant everything.

Though no one could see it, this was no different than the Games itself. It was every man for himself. You had to excel, you had to be at the top of the heap. Claw and inch your way up. Spill another's blood to save your own. Feel nothing, love nothing, trust no one. Because survival depended on it. We were no different than animals.

Pretty deep for an eight year old, I'll admit. What I lacked in basic conversational skills, friends, and a stable, loving home situation I gained in wisdom and morality way beyond my years. My situation, my lifestyle, had forced me to mature early. I needed to, though. There was no other choice; no place in my world for an innocent, helpless child. True, I still clung to the bare bones of my childlike acceptance – the this-is-how-it-is-and-I-have-to-deal-with-it sort of thing – but I knew right from wrong. Better than most adults. Logic, reasoning, and good judgment nourished me; brought me up strong. And this knowledge spread to other aspects of my life. I learned how people worked. I learned how my world worked. I learned how I fit in with everyone and everything around me. As time went on, it became harder and harder to shield me from the truth. No one could pull the wool over my eyes. And I took comfort in that. I had a gift, a talent. But I couldn't let it get to my head. Lay low, wait to strike, or you could end up like District Thirteen…just a lifeless pile of ashes, still smoldering from the Capitol's nuclear bombs.

The woman tossed her straight blond ponytail in exertion as she reached for the boy's ankle chains. "Get over here," she grouched, dragging him by the leg to the cube opening. Her voice was the same one I heard yell at us to be quiet earlier. How long ago was that? Minutes? Hours? The towheaded boy flailed his limbs in surprise. With sharp movements, the woman unshackled him from the cube wall. She tossed the chains aside viciously, its sharp pangs echoing off the cube and ringing in my ears. She was yanking the boy out of the cube when I felt my wrist shackles pulling me out to the front. I flipped my head back around. The man. He gripped both of the chains in just one of his massive hands. I seemed so tiny compared to the man. He was tall, broad, and well-fed; I was young, scrawny, and looked like I never touched a decent meal in all my life. He could knock me out with one squeeze of the hand, hold my entire weight effortlessly with one arm, and strike an unshakable fear into the heart of anyone he came in contact with without saying a word. I was helpless. Defenseless. Completely, utterly at his mercy. No doubt, he could've killed me if he wanted to. One flick of the wrist, and my life would end. Done and done. Not much more tragic than landing a boot on an insect that just happened to scurry into your path. I was no more than an animal to that man. A mouse. A sewer rat that crawled around the filthy streets of District Eight. I'd fallen into the clutches of a cat, and he was toying with me. Playing with me. Letting me live…for now. Why should he hurry? I was under his thumb, his control. He was a master hunter. Should I expire before the real fun began, it was no big deal. There were thousands like me. I would easily be replaced. Just the slightest taste of his thought process sent shivers down my spine.

The man swept his fingers across my shackles, freeing my wrists from their painful enclosure. The chain imprints were pink and tender. A thin ring of sweat beaded around the edges. I realized how close my leg was to the man when he wordlessly undid the locks around my ankles. My knobby knee just barely grazed the crisp hem of his snowy uniform. My entire leg tingled hot at the contact, yet I shivered. I slowly raised my eyes to the man's face. The boiling white stadium lights lit it from behind. Stark blocks of white rested on the flanks of his tall cheekbones. Only the very edges of his body were illuminated because of the lights; the middle was bathed in shadow.

The man's darkened features were unmoving as he proceeded to grip my arm with the very hand that set me free. Not as calloused as I expected, but tough. His iron fingers encircled my thin arm seamlessly. Instead of gallantly helping me down, the man more lifted me up from my seat and placed me on the ground below. Pale, dusty gravel bit into my shoeless feet. The light stuck needles in my eyes. Behind me, someone slammed the truck doors closed. A rumble. A cough. A burning spit of exhaust on my ankles. Then the truck drove away. I never saw who was driving it.

I once again was reminded of the Peacekeeper's steady grip on my arm. From the way his body was positioned, I knew that he wanted me to look forward. "Silently ordered" is more like it. Anyways, what lay before me was the squat grey building that sat in the midst of a white gravel sea. It was an odd little thing. More like a military fort than a normal structure, the building had a slated, half-cylindrical roof supported by four sturdy walls dotted sparsely with black windows. It seemed some hundred yards away, but I could still make out a few red emblems scrawled on the left front wall, facing me, and front door. What in the world?… Where am I? What's going on? Why is this happening to me? I want Dad… I want Mom… I want Dad…

I felt my face turn the wrong way, as it does when I'm on the verge of tears. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to go home. Pretend this horrible mess didn't happen; pretend my life wasn't shattered in a fraction of an instant. Just go back to the way it used to be. Crooked smiles. Hollow inside. The perfect family. At least I could lie to myself and pretend we were the perfect family. At least I was cushioned from the cold blow of reality. One crack in the glass, one slip-up, and it all ended. There was a shock in the beginning; blurs, forgetting, and acting like this wasn't really happening. But that, too, was stripped away. At this very moment, I finally realized that my life had changed. No more Tae. No more Mom. And my father was long gone. I had no home, no family. Eight years old, and I had to strike out on my own. Or, in this case, go wherever the people in uniform made me, though everything within me screamed not to. Something about them was wrong. Very wrong. Dangerous. I couldn't grasp it then, but I know now. Just like that, the Panem government snatched the rug right out from under me. They saw an opening, a chance, a weakness, and they went for it. I was more than under their thumb. I was in custody. And the grey building looming ahead? That was my prison. From there, I would be taken to the children's home – the vile, ruthless hell-pit only heard about through whispers and horror stories late in the night. No one knew exactly what went on behind those heavy brick walls, but let me tell you that the rumors were just as good as truth. At school, you didn't have to be a sharpshooter to recognize the kids doomed to a life in the children's home: Strung-up shoulders. Veiny eyes. Greasy hair hanging down in chunks. Concave bellies. Various and malicious injury to their face and body. Not to mention, they acted…different. A bad kind of different. Many have gone insane. Some died. Some took their own lives. Still others entered the home's doors and were never heard from again. It was unnerving just to be in those kids' presence. But to know you were going to experience the unknown torture that they just managed to survive, to know that you could very possibly become one of those either injured, killed, or driven so far off the brink as to take a knife to yourself to end that brutal torture of a life. That was more than words could say.

I dug my nails into the fleshy part of my palm. I gritted my teeth, drank in a breath of night air, and forced the lump that had formed in my throat to disappear. No more crying. I wouldn't give those pigs that satisfaction. If they wanted to lock me in that building, fine. But there was no promise that I'd be there tomorrow. I'd be heading home.

My mind was in a cloud as the four of us made our way to the grey fort up ahead. I remember the rocks, though. By the end of the trek, my feet were pulsating; on the verge of bleeding. I also remember the wind, and the distant city lights winking dimly while under the stadium lights' power. Back in town, families were probably bedding down after a few precious minutes of post-dinner television. Others, tiny in number, had just woken up for the night-shift in select businesses downtown. Everyone was continuing life as usual.

Though it was early fall at the time, frigid bitter winds blew back my hair and caressed my skin. A terrible time to remember that you'd forgotten your jacket. I looked back at the city lights. Warmth. Shelter. Hot food. My stomach groaned, begging me for a steamy bowl of homemade soup, grits, or even some spare fluffy slices of honey bread I'd often received from Hanna, the local baker woman. Around mid-sixties in age, Hanna was a kind, grandmotherly soul often sought to for her wisdom and generosity. It is an unspoken honor in District Eight to be blessed with health and longevity. Older people like Hanna had survived six long and painful years standing before the town square at the reapings, praying that they'd never get picked. It was a miracle that she didn't. With her cinnamon-swirl hair and twinkling eyes, Hanna opened a small family bakery that served the better District Eight for some thirty years. As long as I could remember, my father would wake me up early on Saturday mornings and take me with him to the bakery to stock up on bread for the week. We didn't live too far away, in fact. But no matter if you're three blocks away or three miles away, the one bakery in a city of two and a half million will always sell out on white bread before ten o'clock. So right at dawn, we'd start our walk to the little cottage. My poor father, when I was little, often had to carry or drag me the rest of the way when my young legs grew tired. It was well worth the trouble once we got to the bakery, though. The small, cozy building was like something you see in fairytales. Located on the lonely, less-industrialized part of town, the bakery was odd in the way that it wasn't attached to any other building, factory, or apartment; that, and around the back, it harbored the only non-manmade structure in District Eight…a tree. A poor, sickly little sapling, but still a tree. The sour factory pollutants had withered its leaves and blackened its trunk. Nonetheless, no young bakery patron could resist swinging on its low, scraggily boughs. I think it was because the idea of communicating with nature was so alien to us. Some districts had to live off their land. We, though, tore ourselves from it. Not a good case for our tributes in the Arena. Anyways, I loved to visit the little bakery every week. First of all, the warm scent of baking break would hit you like a ton of bricks as soon as you stepped in the door. Your mouth would salivate, your mind would go blank, and before you knew it, you were under its spell. Even when I wasn't hungry before, the tempting smells would make my fooled stomach roar in vain. While my father placed an order for a loaf or two of the cheaper day-old bread, I would teeter as fast as my little legs could carry me past the counter, through the kitchen, around the outdoor kiln, and straight into the arms of the "bakery tree." Unlike the other children my age who would swing like monkeys from as high of a branch as they dared, I often took refuge in a low fork. The surrounding basketwork of branches obscured me from view, and I passed several minutes just lying in their shadow. So much so, that once I accidentally fell asleep. When I didn't show up after they called for me, Hanna sent her son Emmott to retrieve me. Emmott had also worked at the bakery for as long as I could remember. Sometimes I watched him trot back and forth to the outdoor kiln; putting in bread, taking out bread, adding chips for the fire. He only set one loaf ablaze in all his years at the bakery. Somewhere between twenty and thirty, Emmott was found to be extremely handsome among the female population of District Eight. Dark eyes. Tan skin. Strong from years of physical labor. On a shallower note, he was wealthy too. Almost all of Hanna's family was. You could tell by their shorter, regularly trimmed hair, white teeth, and solitary house. Hanna, though, was never the type to let it go to her head, and she instructed her children to do the same. So, back to the story, Emmott's face popping up between a tiny gap in the branches was the first thing I saw after awakening from my midafternoon slumber. A normal girl, age five at the time, might have been slightly startled. I was petrified. The traumas of my home life were ingrained deep in my personality; so much so, I wouldn't even whisper to anyone besides my father. Now here comes a practical stranger, with arm muscles the size of my head, invading the one secure place in District Eight where I didn't have to experience the swearing, booze-drinking, violence, and hatred that went on in everyday life. Invading my sanctuary. My peace. My realm. My world… Of course, it was his family's tree. And looking back on it now and eight years before, I knew Emmott didn't mean to frighten me. But I didn't know it then.

"Ah," said the young man as his sharp eyes spotted me. "There you are." Emmott alighted onto a low bough, crackling twigs underfoot. I was scared to death. Was I in trouble? Why was Emmott here? Where's Dad? Every ounce of drowsiness was flushed from my veins. Like a pursued chipmunk, I scrambled wildly up the nearest branch; groping for any handhold I could find and shimmying up the thinnest twigs. Emmott was no little kid, but he managed to follow surprisingly hot on my heels. He'd climbed this tree before. Was that a smirk on his face? A bloodcurdling creak on the branch I clung to stopped me in my tracks. By then, I was swinging precariously in the breeze some twelve and a half feet above the ground. My shadow danced on the mangy turf below. I squeezed my eyes shut, growing nauseous. As if headspinning vertigo wasn't enough, I shot a quick look around my shoulder to see if Emmott was going to take advantage of this momentary halt in my escape. _There was no doubt about it,_ I thought; bracing myself for the feeling of his strong hand coming to take me. _He was probably reaching for me right now_… As I turned, I felt rather than heard a simultaneous snap behind me. _My branch,_ I thought. _I'm falling. I'm falling_. My mouth went cotton. My eyes grew wide. Every muscle and every tendon locked. I was pretty sure that my heart had stopped. I expected to see the landscape streaking before my eyes. I expected to see the ground. I expected to hit the ground…only I didn't. The view around me was stable. I still clutched the branch. I wasn't falling. As I sucked in a dry breath, I felt my heart revving back to life. I wasn't falling. I was so relieved, I almost let go of the branch. I wasn't falling. But wait…what was that noise? My head swiveled gingerly around. Emmott! Hanging on for dear life, the young man swung clinging with his left hand to a scrawny twig just below my foot. He was the one falling. The lighter branches couldn't support his older, heavier body like it did mine. With his supreme agility, Emmott was lucky to even get that far up. I watched helplessly as he twisted and writhed; desperate, grabbing for straws. He grunted.

"Katniss!" Emmott cried. Wait…how did he know my name? "Help! Help me!" I was torn. On the one hand, my instincts were screaming at me not to give myself away. Don't get caught. Don't look back. Think nothing. Keep running. It was tempting, I'll admit. I was scared. I didn't want to look back. I wanted to keep running. I wanted to hide; to take advantage of his lapse in pursuit, like I was sure he was going to do for me. Run. Hide. Wait until it all blew over. Like I was already used to doing. I gave it serious consideration, that is, until I received a look from Emmott – dangling by a thread – that I was destined to get again the night of my brother's death. It was the look my father gave to me after he'd done the deed; murdering his infant son, and running for his life out of our home. A look of desperation. Of fear. Regret. The look you get when your life flashes before your eyes. The look before death. After I stared into the young man's eyes, my mind was made up. Before I could let myself take in the consequences of my decision, I extended a brave hand toward my perceived attacker. Everything within me told me to stop. What are you thinking? Are you insane? He's just going to chase you again. He'll get you. You know he will. Just keep running. Don't worry about him. Worry about you. Keep running. It seemed like it was slow-motion, the time I reached down to help Emmott back to his feet. Every moment seemed to last an hour. I blocked out my qualms. Numbed myself to their bite. In doing so, my brain was muddled, and produced no thoughts other than the fuzzy echoes of my conscience begging me to stop what I was doing. _It's a trap,_ they said. _He's going to get you. _I shut the thoughts out of my mind once more. Right now, I knew I was doing the right thing…mostly. I mean, I thought I was. I hoped I was. As if moving in cold molasses, Emmott blinked slowly; his face clutching the shreds of the helpless look he gave me, just as he, himself, was doing to the branch. A single eyebrow twitched. He was confused, but trying not to show it. Then all at once, his countenance smoothed. Emmott swung a powerful arm in an arch, and met my hand with his. He gripped it tightly, but not too tightly. This felt odd to me. That and I wondered how a big, strong guy like him would beg for the aid of a five year old girl to hoist him up to safety. I was thirty-five pounds; Emmott had to be close to two hundred. Something wasn't right… As I held his grip, I knew it was my turn to look confused. I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. Suddenly, Emmott shot me a pearly smile. Not the friendly "How do you do?" smile, but a cunning, mischievous smile. The kind that is formed when someone has fallen into the grinner's trap. Right then, I knew I was tricked. That horrible, sick-to-your-stomach feeling when you know something as gone awry. The young man's hand enclosed around mine and, before I could register what had happened, I felt myself flying forwards. A flash of green leaves. The intricate, carved veins of a tree bough. Snapping twigs. The rustle of leaves. A purple shirt underneath a flour-stained apron. I opened my eyes. My back was pressed against something warm and sturdy, though I felt suspended in midair. An arm as thick as a pillar hugged me around the ribcage. I looked up, and saw Emmott hanging by the branch effortlessly with one hand, muscles bulging. The overhead sun ran its fingers through his short, dark brown hair. He smiled. "Gotcha," he stated triumphantly. The dark chords of his voice rumbled down his chest and then flowed into my back. I craned my neck up at him again. My cheeks burned. I couldn't tell if it was because of embarrassment or because I was so angry with him. I was deeply hurt. _Emmott betrayed me,_ I thought. He betrayed me the one time I ventured out to trust someone. What a dirty little trick that was. He didn't have to stoop so low to get me out of a tree. Well…I did run from him. I did corner myself in a desperate attempt at escape. What was he supposed to do? Emmott could never coax me down from the limb, no way. And he knew that. He wasn't really mean about it, either. He caught me; he made sure I was safe. Emmott was just doing what he was sent to do. Even if it meant yanking me down from a branch like a ragdoll. I forgave him. Not even an instant later, my ears picked up a sickening crunch from somewhere above my head. My heart hopped in my mouth. I shot a look up to Emmott; one that said, "Please, please tell me that wasn't what I thought it was." Unfortunately, though, it was. The cruelly ironic manifestation of my worst fears. I looked up to see the eerie sunlight glinting in the space between the branch Emmott clung to and the large bough from which it was severed. No. No, no. Please no. The tail-end of a curse had just barely passed through Emmott's lips when we started our free-fall. My innards lurched. My breath came shallow. Kaleidoscopes of spinning twigs, sky, and greenery sped by from above and behind. Like a couple of old toys in the washing machine. We pitched around violently. Tumbling. Rolling. Smashing. Crashing. I didn't have time to notice each new bump, bruise, or cut before another came. Both of Emmott's arms, now, clutched me to his stomach. My ribcage felt as if it was shattering like glass. It was almost dreamlike, how long we were falling. No sooner had I thought that than I felt a cool whoosh of air from behind. A flash of sun. We'd broken free from the tree's hold. A bone-rattling thump. We hit the ground. The abruptness of our landing knocked the air right out of my lungs. As I lay there, gagging and reeling for breath, Emmott rolled right out from under me. I was thrown from his stomach. For a minute, I rested on the scraggily turf; slowly drinking in oxygen while also processing my thoughts after the fall. I got up when I was ready. My head felt twice as heavy. My vision was dotted with randomly colored circles of light. I felt giddy and lightheaded. But as soon as my eyes glazed over to Emmott, the thoughts of my own problems dispersed. It was clear that he'd taken the full brunt of the fall. While lying on his side, a single broad shoulder stuck up in the air like a flag, he hunched; caressing his leg, which was bent stiffly at the knee. He was unmoving, like his wide, searching eyes. I would've thought he was dead had he not blinked every few moments. Emmott's brain must've still been trying to cope with what just happened. Just as mine was up until a little while ago. I hesitated, wanting to stay back. The endorphins from the chase still drugged my blood. A tiny stab of resentment, too, burned within me. Yes, I'd forgiven him. But that doesn't mean I wasn't a little mad. My legs took the rest of my unwilling body over to where the young man lay. Ticklish patches of grass sprung up from the tiny, cool pebbles beneath my feet. The sun had hidden behind a cloud of smog, I judged, as the setting around me was plunged into darkness. Finally, I reached Emmott. I knelt close to his head. His brown eyes flitted around me blindly until I could see something click in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, groaning.

"Okay, I didn't mean to do that," Emmott said sheepishly. He looked up at me. His face was welted. Bottom lip cut and bleeding. Bruises and scrapes were littered across his skin. A handful of leaves stuck up in his riled hair. The injury that I noticed first, though, was a thin, long slice running across the middle of his clear forehead. The cut was a vicious shade of crimson.

"Ah," Emmott clucked, fingering the torn sleeve on his shirt. "I'll have to get my mom to fix that." …As if it was the worst of his troubles. He pulled out a crisp white handkerchief to mop his face with, offering a tiny "ouch" when – upon taking it off his face a moment later – finding it covered in blood. I followed his lead. After blotting my own face dry, a few streaks of red stood out; contrasted by the pale white. It was then that I felt the searing burns on my face and body. An area on my cheek throbbed persistently. Emmott stood up, wobbling. He offered a hand to me on the ground, "Well, we better get you back to your dad." I took it, and we made our way hand-in-hand back to the bakery. There was something wrong, I noticed, in the way Emmott was walking. Too much weight on his right…no…left side. He was limping. Eventually, we made it to the back entrance. Gusts of warm, toasty air washed over me. Hanna flipped her head around, bun flying, to look at her son. "Good gracious!" the woman exclaimed, first drawing her hands up to her face before rushing to Emmott's aid. "What on earth –?" A hand grabbed me by my shoulder.

"C'mon," my father said urgently. While one hand rested on my arm, the other cradled our paid loaves of bread packaged in a brown cloth tied up with string. Before I could answer, my father slung me over his shoulder. He turned on his heel to leave. As his shoes clickity-clacked over to the door, I saw a last glimpse of Hanna and Emmott. The poor woman lifted up the back of her son's shirt and gasped. It was gruesome. The shirt itself looked like it was chewed up by a dog, but that was nothing compared to the shredding on Emmott's back. Huge purple bruises. Red and pink splotches of chafing by the tree's bark. Black scuff marks. Multitudes of raw scrapes. Threads of peeled-back skin hanging from scratches. Thick splinters still burrowed deep into his muscle. I almost retched. The entire way home and for the rest of the night, that image haunted my every thought. I felt guilty. Oh, so guilty. It was my fault. The way I ran, the way I hid, the way I let him be a human shield as we took a wild rollercoaster ride down the height of a splintery tree. When Emmott held me to his stomach as we fell…he protected me. As small as I was at the time, a fall on a big enough branch could've killed me. Or make it so that I would never walk again. Emmott protected me. I cried, remembering Hanna's face. I'd hurt her son badly. She was the nicest woman in the world, and I seriously injured her son for no good reason. It was my fault. It was my fault. My pillow soaked with tears, I fell into an empty, dreamless sleep. The orange morning light woke me up the next day. I felt tired still, as much alert as I was before I went to sleep. I felt terrible. The pains of yesterday still trailed my every move like a shadow. I forced myself to get up. No sense in wallowing in self-pity. Smearing the sticky gunk from my eyes, I dressed myself in my factory uniform – button-up navy blouse, belt, dowdy khaki skirt, sturdy brown loafers – and got my things ready for school. Unless you were the child of a government official, you worked a sum of hours after school to help support your family. That was why we students received less than one worksheet of homework per day. Anyways, after I tied my loose hair back with a bandana and wrapped my worn shawl around my shoulders "like a lady", I examined myself in the cracked family mirror. I jumped at my own reflection. Pale, splotchy complexion. Hollow cheeks; one deeply scarred. Runny nose. Two huge, puffy, beet-red eyes bugging out of my skull. Wingy, slept-on hair frowning from underneath my bandana. Fingernails bitten off to the quick. I was a monster. Utterly unrecognizable, even to my own eyes. I hated looking at myself. I scared myself. What would everyone say if I just went out like this? Teachers? Classmates? Friends? Co-workers at the factory? I retreated from the mirror. Making a breakfast for my hideous self, I hung my head in shame. I was so ugly. That was what I looked like on the inside, I guess; aimlessly brooding over things I can't change. Torturing myself. I fished out a clean plate from the cupboard. And now I'd brought it out in the open. I was wearing the conflict within my conscience like a badge of honor. Though it was never meant to be. With a clink, I set the plate on our small circular table. But what could I do? I had to heal myself of this before it could eat me alive. My butchered fingers aptly unknotted the string bow that held our loaf of bread to the brown cloth. What could I do? I peeled back the flaps of the cloth. Knife in hand, I was about to carve out a piece from the flakey golden loaf when I saw that two had already sprung out on the brown cloth. My brow furrowed. Wait…where –? I looked on both ends of our loaf. Both intact. Now I was worried. _Oh no,_ I thought. _My father probably picked up the wrong order_. I started to tie the loaf and its two stowaways back up. But…it was weird how someone would think to order exactly two extra slices of bread. Why not a loaf, or half-loaf? That was the norm. Usually, only wealthy people ordered their bread sliced. But even then, their entire order was sliced. Not just a couple random pieces. I'd made a point there. That doesn't answer one question, though: If by some chance this was our order, why did Dad get two extra pieces? It didn't really seem like him. Especially not after what happened yesterday. Maybe Hanna just made a mistake. Yes, she made a mistake…by putting two perfectly-cut pieces of bread on our cloth when we were the only customers in the bakery at the time. Yeah genius, that seems totally plausible. Well…then who was she putting them in for? Why? Could she have possibly put them in there for –? No. No, of course not. Not me. How about my father? He was a faithful customer. I don't know. Something about it just didn't fit. I know it couldn't have been my mother, because Hanna didn't know her. …Could it have been me? Even after what I did? I mean, I knew she was the nicest woman on earth, but… She had to be mad at me. She had to be. I deserved it. But those two little slices of bread. Could she have forgiven me? I mean, how? Why? Probably because I was just five. Even then, though, I felt responsible for my actions. Maybe she forgave me out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe she knew enough about me that she could tell my own self-loathing could destroy me from the inside out, had she not given me a token of her forgiveness. Maybe she was trying to teach me that sometimes I couldn't help what had already happened. That I should, on the one hand, appreciate what people have done for me while at the same time not feeling that I constantly owe them. That before I could let others forgive me, I would learn to forgive myself. I stared at the two little pieces of bread. I could've been totally wrong. Hanna could've just put these in our bag by mistake and not even meant a word of what I thought she did during my little epiphany. But that didn't matter. I came to a new revelation right there, and I became a better person because of it. And every time my father came back from the bakery – he'd forbidden me from ever returning there again – I saw the same two fresh slices of honey bread and remembered the lessons I learned because of Hanna.

A metallic groan and I was jolted out of my reverie. Where was I? What –? Oh yes. The grey building. The military fort. For once, our eyes were shielded from the stadium lights' white hot stare. All four of us stood crunched up into the shadow of an overhanging lip of the building's roof. I was aware of the cool relief beneath my feet, as well as the searing tingles in my soles and toes from the gravel. I was probably bleeding. But I didn't dare look down.

The dull groan I heard had come from the heavily-bolted metal door less than arm's length away from me. A wad of a hundred metal keys clustered around a ring hung out of the biggest lock's keyhole. Like a pacifier in a baby's mouth. Attached to the jumble of keys was my personal guard – a Peacekeeper. Black hair. Black eyes. Fair skin. A look of pure nothingness was still frozen on his blank face. At the turn of his hand, the lock opened, while his other was still glued to my arm. The man jiggled the ring of keys, frustrated. Finally, he produced a thick iron key from the door's keyhole with a grating _ker-chunk_. It was chipped with rust the color of dried blood. The man stuffed the key ring back into the left front pocket of his trousers. The one out of my view, and thus out of reach. He turned his attention back to the door. I did the same. Now, close-up and sheltered from the light, I could see the red emblem on the door clearly. A large circle, like an eye, with another circle no more than half its circumference floating in its middle. The "iris" – the smaller circle – depicted within it a spool of thread pierced by a long sewing needle, while the outer circle had the all-too-familiar word "DISTRICT" curled around the top; outlined by leafy palm fronds…the symbol of the Capitol. Below the eye-like insignia lay a third circle. It was the smallest. Within it was a number "8", coiled up on itself like a snake. I couldn't believe I didn't recognize the spray-painted symbol before. It was the Seal of District Eight. That meant this building – this warehouse – was funded by the government of Panem.

I was jolted when a large black boot sailed through the middle of the heavy door. Looking around, my eyes settled on the Peacekeeper at my arm. He recoiled his leg. I flicked my stare over to my new friend – the blond ten year old standing at two o'clock just a step away from me. Through veiled eyes, he reflected the same terrified and helpless look I must've shown him. Neither he nor I could figure out what was worse: becoming imprisoned here for a time and transported to the wretched children's home, or staying with these vile, unpredictable adults a moment longer than necessary. Whether we chose one or the other, there was no telling what would become of us within the next hour. Ground into bits and eaten, I guessed. Chopped up and sold as dog food (I'd heard gossip about that in the factory). Maimed. Tortured. Anything of the sort. I could tell that the boy was thinking the same way. But we needn't worry about our decision. Fate had already chosen for us.

The man kicked the door again, and it flew open; shuddering from the impact. Only a rectangle of light poured into the prodigious blackness that waited to swallow us whole. A wall of hot, sticky air enveloped me. It smelled musty, like fresh and old sweat mixed together. I shook uncontrollably, fighting the urge to vomit both out of disgust and out of pure, unadulterated fear. My stomach muscles contracted. My eyes burned. I could feel the thick bile rising in my throat.

"Go," a dark, velvety voice ordered from behind. The man. The Peacekeeper. That was the first time he actually vocalized a command to me. It was a simple word, really. Go. Yet the way it sounded – the way his baritone pitch slid through the thin air, as black and rich as coffee – I couldn't stop myself from doing exactly as I was ordered. I was hypnotized. My mind, conquered with just one syllable.

Against my own will, I found myself walking blindly into the grey building's yawning mouth. It felt like venturing into the belly of a beast. The fervent, smelly air both sunk into and sat on top of my skin. I could see nothing. Footsteps, like a slow applause, clapped from behind. Already, the fumes had climbed into my sinuses; filling my lungs with a putrid odor I could almost taste every time I took a breath, all the while screaming for a tiny sip of oxygen. I forced down puke with every swallow. My innards felt as though liquefied.

After about a minute or so sliding my raw feet over the cool hard ground, I felt a firm squeeze on my arm that I thought had long since gone numb from constriction. I presumed the dark-haired Peacekeeper beside me was ordering me to stop. So I did. There was a tiny stretch of silence that followed, and I began to second-guess myself. What is he doing? Why are we stopping? Was I supposed to stop? Maybe he didn't squeeze my arm. Maybe I just stopped in the middle of this building for no reason. Are we supposed to be somewhere? Maybe I'm making us late. How much time has passed? I probably look so stupid. Okay…if three more seconds pass without us moving, I'm going to continue walking. One. Two… Two…. Two… Two and a half… Two and three quarters… Three. I paused. Not even before I landed my first step, the man pulled me back. What was –? Click. My pupils shrank rapidly as light from overhead filled the room. Splotches in a rainbow of colors danced across my eyes. Soon, though, I adjusted and became aware of my surroundings.

What we stood in – illuminated by lamps dangling from the ceiling above – seemed to be a very tall, very wide garage. Plain-looking. Industrial. Almost abandoned, it seemed. High, round ceiling supported by beams. Mile-thick walls. Concrete floor with little white scars here and there. But most of all, the room was empty. Just empty. All of the sudden, a queasy feeling came over my stomach again. I didn't know why, there was nothing to be afraid of. But I couldn't help it. My instincts were highly-developed pieces of engineering; put to the test time and time again, trained like frighthounds – a muttation, made by the breeding of genetically-altered bloodhounds, used to track down criminals with their extraordinary abilities of sight, scent, hearing, and even heat-seeking by way of small pits in front of their eyes – to pick up the slightest vibe in any situation. And how they have. Something was wrong here. Very, very, very wrong. The same feeling in my gut that overcame me just before Emmott had tricked me into his trust all those years ago (it wasn't really that long, but hey, I was only eight) had arisen again. It was right. It had been right all along. And now, for once, I was going to listen to it. If I had the chance.

The Peacekeeper at my side finally relinquished my left arm. Cool, tingly blood rushed to the wide, reddish band that was up until now suffocated by the man's iron grip. The dank air in the building, though, made the exposed flesh feel uncomfortably damp and frigid. I attempted to rub the feeling away. To stimulate circulation. Before I could react, the man pushed his way past me and started for the lone white door at the end of the garage. His touch turned me to stone. I stood there, watching his white-clad form stride meaningfully to our ultimate destination. I just watched him bounce away, getting smaller…and smaller…and smaller…

"Hey," a familiar voice chirped into my right ear. "You okay?" I blinked, and then turned my head jerkily toward the voice. It was the blond boy. The only friend I recognized. I pushed a stray curl out of my eye. Though he was a full head taller than me, I was able to peer into his face well enough – my vision burning through the thick shag of hair that climbed down to the bridge of his birdlike nose – to read a genuine look of concern. There was something else beneath that too, but I couldn't place a word to it. The fear of our imminent doom? Perhaps. But I think it was even deeper than that. It was blatantly obvious that he was scared out of his mind, but there was a sort of peace – a sort of comfort – in his eyes in knowing that I was there with him. Knowing that he didn't have to go through it alone, as he was so used to doing. Just then, I realized that I felt the same way, even when I didn't know it. My entire life was often spent in solitude. No real support of friends and family. Oh sure, people were willing to be your friend once they've fallen in love with the happy face you wore on the outside. Chat with you, visit you, invite you over for dinner. But it was all temporary; all just a matter of time before you hit a rough patch, and then like magic, they'd all fade away. That moment, that feeling of "Hey, someone really does care for me!" was completely unknown. Not superficial. Not shallow. Not self-seeking. Just true, genuine care for another, known as friendship. No matter what the circumstance.

I immediately looked down, worried that I'd stared at him too long. I nodded my head in response to his question. Just as I ventured to look back up at the boy, I managed to catch his now confused, slightly uncomfortable expression that replaced his concerned one. _Great. Now I've weirded him out_. I lowered my face again, quickly turning away from him. _That's just awesome. Now he thinks that I like him…_

My embarrassment was thankfully interrupted by a donkey's bray from behind that demanded us to keep walking. The woman. I didn't even have to look over my shoulder to see who it was. Letting out a huffy sigh, I again did as I was told. It was unpleasant in the way that I really just didn't want to listen to the woman no matter what she said, but I was more grateful that she didn't put me under a spell like the man. With one word, he was able to string me up like a marionette. No control. No free will. That I found unsettling.

I took in a shaky breath. Filled with dread and trepidation, I forced myself to keep forging on ahead. It took everything I had just to not turn back. Turn back. Run away. Hide. Go back to the life I used to know. I shook violently, teeth chattering. What horrors lay behind that white door? Would I ever see the outside world again? What, just what, was behind that door?

Suspense was gnawing at me like a dog with a bone. Beyond my own teeth chattering, I heard the same kind of clacking to my side. The blond boy – sticking to my right as if he were glued there – was walking with me, shaking just about as bad as I was. His jaw vibrated up and down like a well-oiled engine. He knew. And I knew, too. In less than a second, we would finally reach the white door. Reach the portal of our destiny. It was anyone's guess as to what waited for us just beyond that thin board of wood. The unknown, the imagination of the human mind, the endless possibilities; that was what scared us the most. The male Peacekeeper stood a foot ahead of his, his hand on the silver doorknob. Bleakly staring, looking almost bored, as usual. _Just open it,_ I thought. _Please, please just open the door_. I couldn't take the agonizing wait any longer. Suddenly, a thin, wide hand slipped into mine. I looked down at my own hand, fingers curled between the spaces of a larger, cream-colored one, and traced it lineage up the arm, past the knobby shoulder, and straight into its owner's boyish face. My friend. His thick hair swung like a curtain as he nodded his head ever so slightly. It was time.

I squeezed the boy's hand, glad that my nails weren't long enough to accidentally rake his skin. He did the same back. Slow, painfully slow, the Peacekeeper turned the doorknob with a tight click. My heart jumped. It was time. I gripped my friend's hand in fear. Finally, the door swung open…

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	2. Chapter 1, Part 2

**Read. Add. Review. Don't feed the trolls.**

Entry One, **PART TWO**: 05/18

I couldn't believe my eyes. I simply could not believe what I was seeing. Was I even seeing it? Was this even real? What lay behind the door was worse than I could've ever imagined. This was no tiny warehouse. This was a full-scale Capitol prison.

The garage was a mere closet compared to the vast room we stared into now – bug-eyed and flushed white with pure terror. Same general width, same general length, even the same height. But the difference we noticed as we stared down, down, down to the floor below. If there even was one. Beyond the railing, a huge black drop-off materialized; melting upwards to yellowish-gray in the excessively dim light. A dark, inescapable chasm. It had to be at least several hundred, maybe half a thousand, feet burrowed deep in the cold hard ground. I forced away the images, the thoughts of tumbling over the rail. Falling for minutes at a time. Streaking past the darkness. Who knows if I would even reach the floor?

_No. No Katniss, don't think like that_, I thought. I tried to pull a deep breath into my lungs, but nearly gagged. _Ugh. Now I know where that smell was coming from_. The entire room seemed to be smothering in the hot, sticky atmosphere. Even the gray concrete-brick walls were slick with foul-smelling moisture. Did they ever open this door at all?

My eyes trailed around the circular perimeter of the room. Cells, barred and empty, sat perfectly spaced flank-to-flank. Not even a foot of space between them. I was amazed at just how many cells there were; more than fifty I counted on this floor alone. I gazed down at the chasm below. Fifty times how many floors this place has… That was a lot. What did they even need all the space for? Most, if not all of these cells were empty. Or just quiet. A new, disturbing thought popped into my head. There could be hundreds – thousands – of people in here. All quiet. All of them perfectly silent. Watching the new-comers get introduced to their new home. Watching me. I quaked uncontrollably. What must I look like to them? A helpless, vulnerable eight year old girl. A target? A victim? A new toy to play around with? Definitely not a challenge, not a threat. I could almost feel pairs and pairs of hungry eyes floating out of the darkness of the "empty" cells, sizzling my skin. Looking at me all over.

I captured a scream in my throat just as I felt a firm hand grip me on the back of my neck. The adrenaline coursed frigidly cold through my blood, burning my ears. The Peacekeeper. I recognized his crisp, starchy scent. My heartbeat stabilized a quarter of a beat. At least it wasn't one of those Silent Prisoners. Hungry, bloodshot eyes materializing from the shadows. Their crooked, bony, red-stained paws reaching for me. Claiming me. Gripping me by the leg, or by a hanging scrap of clothing and forcing me into the bars… Bars that I could easily slip through.

I remembered my hold on the blond boy's hand beside me, and placed my free hand gingerly on his forearm. He was the only thing standing between me and the cell just a step ahead of us. I drew closer. _Please, please don't leave me,_ I pleaded in my mind. _Don't leave me, and I promise I won't leave you._

The boy stood still, as if I'd not done anything. Right then, he was too scared to notice me. Too scared to think about anything besides his own safety, which was understandable.

Still gripping me by the back of the throat, the male Peacekeeper prodded me to keep on walking. One. Two. Three. Four. We passed each dark cell with a particularly sluggish pace. I shuffled my feet quietly. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. And so on and so forth, until we reached the fifteenth cell. The once-painted metal bars were chipped and cracked, the same exact color of the man's key to the grey building. Inside, it was terribly dark. No window. No light. Just four long, rectangular spaces cut into the cement wall, two on each side. Most likely, my new sleeping quarters. Wait…mine? Was this my cell? My heart raced; threatening to burst out of my chest. I entwined my fingers around the blond boy's short, baggy sleeve and huddled close to him, as if trying to hide myself from the cell's view. At least I wasn't alone. At least I was with someone. This time, the boy reacted. He did a take at me, and then stepped back; closer. I caught his face as he looked, which was pale and splotched with puddles of red on the cheeks. His pupils were dilated. Clearly petrified.

The Peacekeeper took his firm hand off my neck. The skin there felt exposed and chilly. With one swift motion, he scooped me off my feet; ripping me from the protection and companionship of the one friend I had. My one, my only flicker of hope – snuffed. I released an involuntary scream. No. No, he wasn't going to take me away. I wouldn't let him tear me away from the people I loved again. By then, I was barely hanging onto the boy; my slender fingers clutching the very hem of his green sleeve.

The towheaded boy seemed to be in shock for a moment, but soon regained his bearings. "Hey!" he cried, jumping up and wrapping his own skinny arms around one of the Peacekeeper's. "Hey! What are you doing? Put her down! Put her down now!"

A scream escaped my lips again, but this time because of conscious fear. I struggled. Writhed. Kicked. Waved my arms. Cried out as the man fought to keep me still. A few times, I almost escaped from the man's grasp. Almost. But not quite.

A stampede of frenzied footfalls later, and the female Peacekeeper entered the scene. She dug her fingers into the blond boy's arms and pulled him off the man. As the boy continued to fight for me, the woman gritted her teeth and held him back; stifling his flailing arms. She even went as far as to clap her palm over his mouth. The boy showed no sign of stopping. Through my own struggling, I saw the woman reach down to her waist. To her belt. A montage of horrid memories flooded over me. I was back at the shack, watching the terrible scene unfold from my darkened bedroom. The woman held my mother back as the man came for me. Held her back as she fought for me. As she fought to keep the man away from me. Then the woman reached into her belt for the pen. Stabbed my mother. Injected her. Murdered her. I looked on in horror as the current scene unfolded the same way. It was happening again. But now in slow-motion. I saw the woman reach for the pen at her belt. I saw her grab it, holding it up tightly in her white-knuckled fist. She was going to kill him. She was going to kill my friend. Just as she did to my mother.

A fire blazed in my heart. The emotion that was bottled within me all this time finally broke through. A new strength arose within me; something bigger than myself, something I never knew I controlled. Like hot carbonation, it radiated through my veins; shooting out my streaky hazel eyes. Finally, it all boiled out of me in one scream, "**NO!**"

Everything and everyone paused. In a fit of passion, I kicked the woman's hand. The slender, white pen flew. It panged against a rod of the railing. Then, like a dream, into the dark chasm it dived. Never to hurt anyone ever again.

All at once, I realized what I'd done. The woman was doubled over on her knees; clutching her wrist, the knuckles of her unnaturally bent fingers cascading scarlet liquid. She let out a blood-curdling shriek. _I've hurt her,_ the one message ricocheted in my mind. _I've hurt her. I've hurt her._ My eyes shot to the railing again. Pale shreds of skin clung to its ragged, chipped surface. Fat streaks of blood melted down the side. It wasn't the pen that panged against the railing. It was the woman's hand.

I had broken the woman's hand.

She released a second scream. I felt like I was going to throw up. My eyes darted to the blond boy, who she had apparently let go of. He was sitting with his long, spider-like legs sprawled out on the greasy floor. Flushed. Cheeks and lips beet-red. Tiny bruises forming. Caramel brown irises contrasted against the whites of his eyes. Mouth hanging agape. Looking like he'd seen a monster.

I looked back at the female Peacekeeper as she snapped her head up; baby blue eyes watery and hot. She bared her teeth like a wild animal. In that very instant, I knew she was going to kill me. She was going to rip my heart out with her bare hands. With a guttural scream, the woman launched herself at me. She slammed headlong into my body, and I was knocked out of the male Peacekeeper's grasp. The both of us fell through the air for a moment before my spine was rammed against the metal railing just inches away from the lip of the chasm. I cried out in excruciating pain. With her combined weight pushing up against me, I felt like I was going to break in half. Only the lower portion of my body was safe behind the railing; from the small of my back and up, I was overhanging the black, inescapable pit that lay coldly below. Just enough to teeter precariously between life and death. One push, and I'd be over the edge. Frigid air billowed up from the chasm's wide mouth, tickling the back of my neck. And when I opened my eyes again, I was aware of the second danger. The woman. She pinned me down to the edge of the rail with one hand, while using the broken hand to squeeze my face like a lemon. With her sinister nails gauging my cheeks, I wasn't sure whether the blood that ran down was mine or hers. She leaned in so that her nose was but a centimeter away from my own. Hag-like wrinkles were etched deeply into her features. Her eyes were cold and wild. I could feel her hot breath spreading across my entire face.

"Listen here, you little shit," the female Peacekeeper growled in a sinister, scratchy voice. "I got rid of your bitch of a mother, and I will get rid of your little friend too."

Hot, stinging tears poured down the sides of my face. I felt them burn like acid as they leaked into the woman's claws that bit into my tender skin. I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't mean to hurt her. She was going to kill me. First she was going to murder the boy, then she was going to kill me.

I pleaded with the woman; my uncontrollable blubbering racked with sobs, "Don't kill me! Please, I didn't mean to hurt you! I didn't mean it! Please, please! I don't want to die!"

Through blurry slits of vision, I saw the woman's eyes widen in a look that could only be described as pure savagery. "Oh, I know you didn't mean it," she stated in a voice that made my blood run cold. "That's too bad. Because I'm going to get that pen back. And you're going to get it for me!"

_This is it_, I thought. _She's going to throw me over the rail_. The woman lowered her hand that clutched my cheeks down to the space between my chin and throat. As she held me up just by that one hand, her iron fingers pressed against my windpipe. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. It was like the man at the shack, when he pressed on my shoulder. No inhaling. No exhaling. I was choking on my own throat. I felt my blood pressure rise as my face flooded with molten lava. This, though, was more intense than the man. With him, I was knocked out almost instantly. A cold, impassive action. But now, I was being strangled. Eyes bulging. Choking. Sputtering. Gasping. Drooling. I was putting on a show before I was going to be thrown into the chasm. This was a demise that included emotion.

The woman's grip forced me to look up towards the ceiling. Would this be the last thing I ever see, the rafters of a stinky grey building?

Just as the rims of my eyesight were fading to black, I felt a rough jerk on the woman's arm. But I couldn't tell what it was, as I could physically not look down. The female Peacekeeper jolted backward, bringing me back from the edge of the rail. At the sudden movement, the lower part of my body swung limp like a boneless bag of jelly. I gripped the woman's arm. I felt myself falling forward. Right for the woman. At the last moment, her grasp on my throat was relinquished, and I hit the concrete ground. For a fleeting second, I still was unable to breathe. Black spots popped up around my vision. I felt like I was going to retch and pass out at the same time. But as I lay there – gulping in air, and wondering how I was still alive – I regained my grip on reality. I was safe. I didn't fall into the chasm. I still lived.

But what was that shove? What made her tumble backwards? Though my head felt like a million pounds, I fought the urge to keel over and lifted myself up as much as I could bear. What shapes I could barely make out were a tilted blur. After every blink, I forced my eyelids to open back up. The woman's crushing talons felt as if still closed around my neck, but I couldn't gather the strength to even just lift up my hand to rub the feeling away. I needed to open my airways. I was suffocating. Before I knew it, the hard concrete ground flew up and smacked me on the side of the head. Everything went black.

**So, was **_**PART TWO**_** worth the wait? **

**If you could, please… #1.) Review, #2.) Vote for the new story title in the polls, #3.) Spread the word, and #4.) Add this to your Story Alerts list so you can be notified for the release of **_**Chapter One, PART THREE**_**. :D**

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